Clarence Williams (musician)
Clarence Williams ( born October 8, 1893 in Plaquemine, Louisiana, † November 6, 1965 in Queens, New York ) was an American jazz pianist, singer, composer and record producer, music publisher and agent.
Life
Williams, the Native American ( Choctaw ) and Creole origin was, was born in Plaquemine near New Orleans. His father was a bass player, who ran a small hotel, so that Clarence Williams gained his first musical experience with appearances in his parents' hotel as well as a street musician. 1906 Williams came to New Orleans. At the age of twelve he left home and moved in with Billy Kersands ' Minstrelshow as a singer through the area. Shortly thereafter, he acted as moderator at the performances of the group.
After Williams had returned to New Orleans, he founded a company for the suit cleaning for many style-conscious piano teacher in town. He played piano in the honky -tonks of the Municipality of Storyville. In this legendary red-light district of Williams, who was not known for restraint, stated that he was strongly influenced by the influential ragtime pianist and composer of "Pretty Baby" Tony Jackson. Williams played at this time, among other things as a professional pianist with Sidney Bechet and Bunk Johnson.
Williams devoted a large part of his time trying to deal with the current trends of music and was a regular contributor to New York to have them sent the latest songs. During this time he founded his own cabaret and wrote his first commercially marketed composition Brownskin, Who You For?, Was released by Columbia Records. According to his own testimony, his fee for this song in the amount of $ 1,600 was the highest sum that had received until then ever anyone in New Orleans for a song.
Around 1915, he teamed with Armand Piron in New Orleans a music publishing, which should remain for several years in the business. Piron was a bandleader whose most famous composition was the song I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. In 1917, he put together a stage show with Williams on the legs, in which Piron played the violin and Williams appeared as a pianist and singer. During their performances they came into contact with W. C. Handy, who helped them, some of their compositions in music stores in Memphis (Tennessee ) for sale. Was considered an important concert in Atlanta reclassified from a black audience on white audience because so many whites were interested in the music, asked Williams and Piron phone to work with him to improve the program. The concert was a triumph and the New Orleanser duo finished the previous tour.
Since then, Williams claims to be, to have been the first songwriter to have the word " jazz " is used on a printed sheet, his business card it referred henceforth as " The founder of jazz and boogie woogie " ("The Originator of Jazz and Boogie Woogie. "). Williams partners with many songs this time was Spencer Williams (who was, however, not related to him ). Your piece Royal Garden Blues became a classic Dixieland style.
After Storyville was closed and the newer talents were now to be found more in the northern cities, Williams moved in 1920 from New Orleans to Chicago. Near the Vendome Theatre here he opened a music store, which proved so successful that belonged to him Baid two other music stores in the city. This year, Mamie Smith Perry Bradford's songs Crazy Blues and It took on 's Right Here For You, and as the audience that heard here for the first time to sing a black woman blues, wanting more, Williams saw a new business idea and marketed henceforth shots black blues singers.
In 1921, Williams married blues singer Eva Taylor. She was one of the first female blues singers who appeared on the radio, their performances and their style influenced many later singing stars. Among the songs that she and her husband produced and aufführten also the song was May We Meet Again, written " in memory of our revered Florence Mills ," one of the most popular black stage stars of the time.
William had recognized the market potential for the sale of the New Orleans music in the north, and since New York City was the center of the music industry, he sold his 1923 music stores in Chicago and moved there. He rented rooms in the building of the Gaiety Theatre building on Broadway, in which there is other African-American entertainers, including Bert Williams, Will Vodery, Pace and Handy and Perry Bradford had settled, and took in February of the same year with Bessie Smith at Columbia on the first plates.
Soon worked more from New Orleans native musicians with him, including James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. From 1923 to 1928 Williams was an artist and repertoire director for Okeh Records, and constantly discovered new talents. During this time he organized numerous sessions and thus promoted the careers of many sizes of early jazz such as Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Among other things, he hired jazz musicians Don Redman, King Oliver and Coleman Hawkins.
Between 1923 and 1937, Williams was an accomplished producer who organized monthly at least two recording sessions and recorded under his own name over 300 plates. One of his peculiarities was to take a piece of a company and if he did not like the results, take the same session with another company under a different name. Two of the pseudonyms he used it, the Dixie Washboard band and the Blue Grass Foot Warmers.
1927 Williams made his first experiments in musical theater. He wrote the book and the music for the show Bottomland, in which his wife Eva Taylor played the lead role. The show was not a resounding success, but the rest of his business flourished; to 1943, he continued his business and then sold his collection of over 2000 songs on Decca Company for the sum of 50,000 dollars.
From the late 1930s to 1956, Williams spent most of his time to the composition of new pieces. In 1956 he was included in an accident by a taxi and went blind as a result.